Excellence as Reality
by SageK
Summary: You know these teams would so be able to take over the world together.
1. Chapter 1

The tension crackling in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Eight armed (and 2 unarmed) men and women stood in the warehouse, five facing five, staring each other down. You could hear a pin drop or….

"Seriously!" Two men, the youngest on either side, chorused suddenly, though only one of them took his eyes from the opposition to stare at his own team mate. Alec Hardison gaped at his long haired colleague and said, "Now is not the time to growl at the large, heavily armed men, Eliot…and did that dude growl back at you?"

One of the other men had indeed let out a menacing rumble, peering out from beneath the brim of his hat along the length of a very unpleasant looking rifle. The rest of his team were armed with an assortment of shotguns, rifles and big ass hand guns. It looked like they'd raided an armory.

The quasi-Mexican stand off was halted as one of the men, the oldest of his group, big and holding two automatic weapons, spoke. "Spencer? That you?"

Eliot peered across at the shadowed faces before a fraction of the tension eased from his shoulders. "Clay? Heard there was an incident in Bolivia involving a helo. Word is you're dead."

"That was Max's plan," the big man replied. "Didn't take. "

"Eliot," Nate Ford said sharply, still holding up his small handgun. "You going to introduce your friend?"

The hitter actually relaxed his posture and gestured. "Nate, Clay. Clay and I…worked on a few projects together. Nate is…our version of you, Clay."

"Are we just going to stand here all night?" Parker asked suddenly. "Cause it's going to get boring really fast. Unless someone gets shot."

There was a little too much gleeful anticipation in her tone for Hardison's comfort. "Um, why don't we put down the guns before there's screaming and running and blood. No one wants that…right?"

"Are we scaring you?" Mocked the uber hottie with the long pony-tail and shit, was that a mini rocket launcher attached to her gun? Oh, that was both terrifying and…no, it was just terrifying, as was the gleam in Parker's eye as the blond eye balled the nasty weapon. That was a scary thought. Parker with a rocket launcher.

"So, what are you all doing here in this high security store house, hmmm?" The young guy on Clay's team asked, shifting slightly and Alec caught a glimpse of a padded laptop case strapped to his back. Oddly, it might even be the same case sung around his shoulders. "Taking a stroll? Maybe got lost from your tour group?"

"Oh, like y'all should talk! Coming up in here with enough guns to take over a small Eastern European nation. Are you supposed to be in here? No need to answer because I have seen the security schedule and I know the answer."

"Hardison," Sophie and Nate chorused as Eliot gave him a 'shut up' look.

One of the guys on the other team gave him an odd look. "You got a half-brother we don't know about, Jensen?"

The guy in the hat smirked and the woman snorted. Clay shook his head as the young guys squawked in protest and simply talked over him. "Why are you here?"

"Max is bad," Parker said, obviously getting antsy. "We don't like bad people."

Clay looked from his team to Nate, to Eliot and back to his team before lowering his weapons. "I think we might have something in common."

The office seemed overly crowded with the presence of the other team. Parker wasn't sure what to make of them. They weren't like the other team of con men they'd worked with on one job and they certainly weren't like her team.

And they sure as hell weren't normal. Parker might not have been an authority on the topic, but she knew enough to see that they weren't it.

Pouring herself a large bowl of cereal, she peered out over assembled bodies and decided there was way too much testosterone in the room.

Nate and the big guy, Franklin Clay, were standing over by the planning desk, pouring over the hard copies of all the info they had amassed on evil Max. From what she'd over heard, the two men though a lot a like, which was scary. And Parker did not get scared…but she could almost see the two of them coming up with a plan which, while utilizing all their skills perfectly, would sound like the deranged ravings of a lemming.

All lemmings were suicidal and stupid. It was the only reasoning she could come up with that might explain the cliff thing.

Not that she thought Nate was stupid and she was pretty sure he wasn't suicidal…most of the time.

Eliot had once asked her and Hardison if they were having a creepy contest. Nate and Clay were having a crazy contest that she did not want to be involved in.

Bowl in hand, she crept around the perimeter of the room until she was behind Eliot's chair, then silently hitched a hip up onto the right arm rest. Sophie was in a chair on his other side, trying to engage Linwood Porteous, or Pooch, as everyone on his team called him, in conversation. He was far more pleasant than Clay, but that wasn't saying a lot.

Aisha al-Fadhil, who was in possession of at least one gun Parker really wanted, was interesting and she hoped they'd get a chance to talk a bit after the job was done and Max was either dead, in jail or weeping in a corner (The first two outcomes were preferable, but the latter had a certain potential for amusement), had been on the couch, but had left to peer at what Clay and Nate were doing. Also, Aisha seemed at times to scare the crap out of some of her own team mates, a skill Parker liked to think she had and this was a rare opportunity to chat with a peer.

The guy in the hat, whom every just called Cougar (Hardison had found a file that ID'd him as Carlos Alvarez, but Cougar sounded more fun), was at the opposite end of the couch, very still, like a creepy statue. Only his eyes were moving, skipping from Eliot, to where Hardison was chatting with his new fiend, to a mirrored surface where he could see the reflection of Nate's little pow-wow.

Hardison and Jake Jensen were conferring over their laptops and neither of them had stopped tapping at their keyboards since they had come to the conclusion that they knew of each other in some abstract way from the land that computer geniuses lived in. There had been some mutually appreciative babbling that had left increased in pitch and speed until Nate had suggested Hardison show Jensen the cyber intel stuff he had on his big computer.

After that, the volume of their combined, techno fueled excitement had lowered, but occasionally one of them would let out a loud exclamation and, if you listened, you could hear them talking, discussing a myriad of topics for hot Cylons to a debate Gummie Frogs vs. Gummie Moose. And there were compliments on each others style, both computer systems and brightly colored t-shirts.

Though Parker doubted Hardison would ever wear a yellow t-shirt with pink bunnies on it. Eliot would probably tease him if he did, without real malice, but Hardison was sensitive. Even she could tell it was joking, 'cause it was Eliot, who wore beads in his hair and owned a flat iron, so he couldn't be too entrenched in the 'Grrrr! Man Do Man Things' mindset.

She was distracted from her musings by Nate saying, "Eliot, Parker, recon for tomorrow night."

"Cougar, go with them," Clay grunted, earning a look and a silent nod from the be-hatted man.

Over in happy computer guru land, Jensen exclaimed, "Dude! The Bank of Iceland was you! Nice."

Hardison looked pleased. "Well, those Journey firewalls you designed for certain intelligence agencies are solid. I mean, the redundancies built into the system…Wow!"

"Huh." Pooch said contemplatively from his spot on the couch, glancing over at the two techies. "This mutual admiration society could get old really fast."

Sophie made a noise of amusement while Aisha grinned wickedly.

Eliot and Cougar were still exchanging measuring looks and Parker hooked Eliot's arm with her own as they left the room. They might be working with this other team (for this job), but they weren't her team.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

"Dude, I'm just saying, it's kind of creepy and cool."

"Creepy? No, creepy does not begin to describe the level of hella weird that this here is. I mean, running into another crew once is strange enough, but then to bump into you folks in the warehouse…uh uh. No, this is just…."

"Some shiny new level of fuckedupness, but come on, you gotta admit the parallels are awe-some! Each team comes with it's own brooding, leader who comes up with the plans that make every think they're gonna die but don't…usually…."

"And no team worth it's salt would be with out their suave, handsome hacker to do all the detail work."

"Damn straight! Then there's the extremely dangerous functional mute with a heart of gold."

"Say that to his face and Eliot might throw a knife at you. Just a warning shot."

"Aw, I've had a lot fewer knives tossed at me since Roque went all Darth Vader on us."

"He was the dude who…."

"Yeah."

"Moving on…Oh, yes the gorgeous, bad ass ninja chick…though yours might have even more weapons than Parker. Which is not necessarily a bad thing."

"Or a good thing. Aisha shot me once."

"Seriously!"

"It was just in the arm, but still hurt like a mother…And I guess that leaves open the role of the teams…well, we have a driver and you have a grifter, so little difference there."

"Sophie likes to drive. She never lets me or Parker get behind the wheel anymore and none of us really want Nate in that position. She'll ride with Eliot, but he gets concussed a lot, so, yeah, Sophie drives."

Sitting on the couch, with her back turned to the two oblivious and babbling hackers, Sophie shook her head in amusement. Across from her, Pooch seemed to be enjoying the show their younger colleagues were putting on. Raising a brow at him, she asked, "How long do you think they can keep this up for."

Pooch grinned. "One time, we got sent in to deal with a stand off that involved hostages…somewhere I shouldn't mention, but anyhow, Clay figured out how to wear down the lead wing nut that had barricaded himself and a group of innocents in a compound. He gave Jensen a megaphone and just let him talk…and talk…and talk. The bad guy gave up just after hour 43."

Sophie's eyes widened. "That is impressive…and a bit daunting."

Nodding sagely, Pooch said, "I figure it's 'cause of the time he spends on the computer. He types to people but it's not talking and it just builds up until he gets the chance to babble at someone."

With a glance at the chattering and typing hackers, Sophie said, "I wonder which one of them will lose steam first? Oh well, I suppose they have to sleep at some point."

"Sleep?" Pooch chuckled, shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. "I'm assuming yours doesn't sleep walk and talk. Amongst other unconscious nocturnal activities."

Sophie couldn't imagine having to corral a team mate that just never stopped. Pooch seemed to be the most level headed and normal one of his team so she assumed the duty of babysitter had fallen to him. "How do you handle that?" she asked, genuinely curious, as she'd never known someone who sleep walked before.

"It's not too bad, as long as he doesn't get out. Sometimes he hides stuff in the freezer or under mattresses…which can be startling, but we usually just have him room with Cougar. He keeps an eye on him."

She tried to see the more or less silent man in the hat as the care giver type and had trouble, but then shrugged. He was a sniper, so, in essence, he covered his team from a far as Eliot did up close, often putting himself physically between them and danger. With a smile she wondered what Eliot would do if they made him room with a sleep walking Hardison. Probably look after him, same as always.

Saying as much, she added, "Then again, he might tie Hardison's leg to a bed…or couch."

"We tried that for about a moment. It didn't turn out well."

"Maybe wait till he was asleep?"

Pooch chuckled. "Tried that. He bit me during the ensuing freak out."

Compared to that, Sophie supposed her own teams odd sleeping habits (Eliot's 90 minutes a day, Hardison's falling asleep at his computer, Parker's love of vents and Nate's occasional forays into booze induced slumber) weren't so bad.

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Surveying the target and his warehouse like compound (Why did the really bad, evil doing bad guys always have warehouses on their compounds? It just seemed like a whole lot of area to cover, which was good for her, lots of entry and egress points) with Eliot and Cougar had actually been fairly relaxing. None of them were really good at superfluous chatter, so it had been a quiet few hours spent crouching on rooftops and slipping in and out of buildings.

In fact, the only real burst of chatter had come from Hardison and Jensen, when the former was showing off his improvements to the ear buds. A growled threat from Eliot had done nothing to dissuade Hardison, but Nate had piped up and told the hackers to stop with the distractions.

Yeah, like they weren't used to ignoring the constant stream of words…but Parker was pretty sure Jensen talked even more than Hardison, so she suspected the two of them could probably be overwhelming together. Nope, a night on the roof of a warehouse was fare more her scene. Plus Nate and Clay were back at the office and she had a feeling that the two of them would probably just feed off of each others particularly devious and sometimes liquor fueled brands of crazy to make, like, the perfect storm of totally batshit, monkeyfuck insanity.

She hoped Sophie managed to reign in the worst of it.

On the plus side, a some point during the night, Eliot and Cougar seemed to have come to a more stable peace…or at least they'd stopped constantly eyeing each other mistrustfully. She wasn't quite sure how this truce had come about, as neither man had said more than a handful of words and grunts the whole time, but they had and she wasn't going to question it.

After a less than eventful surveillance, they returned to the office. Evil Max had a lot of guards and guns, but they seemed to have a pretty set schedule. That was a really good thing for them, as it made planning entry and egress times around the guards much easier.

Parker trotted into the office, heading over towards the kitchen for a snack, but stopped only a few steps into the room. The air had a strange, sweet tang to it, but not like when Eliot baked cookies. This was extra sweet and artificial, like soda mixed with lollipops and bubblegum. It was fairly dark, the only light present coming from the monitors on the wall, playing some loud movie with men in white plastic armor running around. Hardison and Jensen were sitting on the couch, each with a laptop out, still managing to converse over the sounds.

Oddly, they both seemed to be nearly vibrating with pent up energy.

It was more than a little unnerving, as was the fact that no one else was in the room.

Turning back to look at Eliot, she saw that he and Cougar were wearing matching expressions of fond exasperation the quickly disappeared when they realized they were being observed. Eliot reached out and flipped on the overhead lamp, flooding the room with light and finally catching the attention of the two on the couch.

"Hey," Hardison greeted them with a grin. Parker was glad he seemed to be getting along with his counterpart on this team. "When'd you guys get back?"

"Just now," Eliot replied, then peered around the now lit apartment. "Where'd the others head off to?"

Hardison shrugged and Jensen piped up, "Bar. They left about an hour ago, so maybe Pooch'll still be there with your people. I figure by now Clay and Aisha have left to have hate sex while they can be sure none of us are around to interrupt. As if we would. Me, I just try to drown out the sounds with my I-Pod and repress, repress, repress. Someday a therapist is gonna have a field day with me…or maybe not. Hey, Cougs, can we talk to therapists about classified stuff or is that still treason? 'Cause they have the whole doctor/patient confidentiality thing, so they should be okay. "

When he paused for a breath, Cougar tipped his head to the side and said, "Bar?"

Parker thought he was asking what bar, but Jensen beat her to respond, "No, man, I'm good. "We're having a little movie marathon here. Check the visuals. Pretty sweet, but you go find Pooch if ya want. I'll get back to the hotel later."

"Dude," Hardison tapped Jensen on the shoulder. "They're about to freeze Han in Carbonite."

Distracted, Jensen turned back to the TV as an ominous looking man in black pontificated about something.

Seeing that there apparently wasn't going to be any more work done that night, Eliot flipped off the light and led the three of them down to the bar. It would be closing soon, but being that they were in tight with the owner, no one ever really commented on their comings and goings at odd hours. Parker was also pretty sure Nate had a key to the bar.

At least he had one the last time she lifted his key ring.

Just for fun.

They found Sophie, Nate and Pooch sitting at a table, sipping what appeared to be coffee. As predicted, clay and Aisha were nowhere to be seen.

As soon as he saw them, Pooch shook his head at Cougar and pointed a finger at the ceiling, clearly indicating the apartment above where they had just left Hardison and Jensen. "Ritalin. Golf ball sized Ritalin. After this op, I swear to God I'm going to find some way to get some for Jensen."

Cougar simply raised a brow at his team mate as they all took seats around the table. Eliot had made a detour by the bar and snagged cups for them, coffee for Cougar and tea for himself and Parker. It was plain tea, she realized with a shrug. Up a the office, Eliot usually made her peppermint tea or hot cocoa this late at night, but they probably didn't stock it at the bad.

'I feel I should warn you," Sophie was saying to Cougar, "They've been downing Mountain Dew and Pixie Stix for the last few hours, so your friend may be a little…hyper for a while."

This little revelation actually made Cougar close his eyes, drop his head and let out a garbled, grumbled Spanish curse. Pooch patted his teammate on the back and said, to the rest of them, "Jensen doesn't really do get hyper, cause hyper is his default state. Hopped up on sugar and caffeine…I'd say spastic is pretty accurate. Until he crashes, that is."

"If what we saw upstairs is an indication, this crash is gonna be a bad one," Eliot muttered unhappily. He eyeballed Nate for a moment, gauged exactly how far in the bag the older man was, sighed, then turned to Sophie. "When are we planning to take Max down, anyhow?"

"Sunday night," Sophie assured him, knowing this date would allow their hackers to come down off their sugar highs, but also be out of the post sugar high coma. Also, it would give them all some time to get used to the idea of working in tandem with another team.

Parker grinned at no one in particular over the rim of her cup. This was going to be fun.

TBC…


End file.
